These are sombre times. Benazir Bhutto should pause to reflect about what is going on and where she is taking the country.
A clue in this direction has recently been provided by our American friends. They have expressed their displeasure at the government for registering a “treason case” against opposition leader Nawaz Sharif. On the face of it, this view shouldn’t arouse too much controversy — after all, it is a common enough sentiment that the confrontation between government and opposition, initiated by the opposition last year, has now been carried to absurd limits by the government. But the timing and manner of the American statement would suggest a more complex and worrying analysis than the one on sale at the moment — ie, that “this amounts to an interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan because it infringes our sovereignty”.
Of course, it is an “interference” in the internal affairs of Pakistan. But can this “interference” be shrugged away by the usual statement from the Foreign Office and an angry editorial or two in the press denouncing the Americans for not “minding their own business”?
The calculated manner in which the “interference” as made by the Americans needs to be evaluated with great concern. There was no prior hint of American disapproval in the local press, although senior American officials in Pakistan know how to leak stories. More significantly, no discreet message was conveyed to our ambassador in Washington or to anyone in the Foreign Office or in the PM’s secretariat in Islamabad. Instead, US State Department officials prodded a loaded question from a Pakistani journalist in Washington and then promptly read out a carefully prepared statement on the issue. Clearly, the American have resorted to such blunt talking because they want the Bhutto government to sit up, take notice and carefully rethink the extraordinary political implications of trying a former prime minister for “treason”. But that is not all.
After desperately renegotiating a revision of the 1994-95 budgetary targets in April and then again in May, Islamabad had given firm assurances to the IMF that the next budget would be framed strictly in accordance with IMF guidelines. However, despite disclaimers by the government, the new budget has all but overturned the IMF’s structural adjustment programme in Pakistan. We have gone back on our word with the IMF for the umpteenth time. Ominously enough, the word in the IMF’s Washington headquarters is: no more money for Pakistan. How should we react to this?
Since there is ample short-term political and economic justification for the budget, Islamabad is sanguine that the IMF can be persuaded to go along with it, however reluctantly. But this is not a realistic assessment of the situation. The IMF, as everyone knows, is a sophisticated instrument of American foreign policy. It is therefore more than likely that on this occasion the IMF will balk at approving Pakistani requests for economic assistance until the Bhutto government wakes up to its political follies at home. If the Americans think that the confrontation with the opposition is inimical to political stability in Pakistan, it is more than likely that they will use the IMF to drum the State Department’s recent message home even more forcefully. It is also logical to assume that a solution to Karachi will be added to Washington’s political conditionalities because it remains the most dangerous faultline in our political system.
Indeed, there is now more than a hint of evidence that the Americans played a role in persuading Altaf Hussain to call off his strike recently. If that is so, it stands to reason that the Americans must have conveyed this fact, along with their views, to the Bhutto government and asked for reconciliatory measures from the government in exchange for the MQM’s cooperation.
In the final analysis, therefore, we can reasonably guess the bottom line: sort out Karachi at all costs and do so quickly. Since the costs to the Bhutto government have already been outlined by the “treasonable” opposition leader Nawaz Sharif (the MQM(A) should be granted a general amnesty and the Haqiqis should be locked up) we can see what the Americans are trying to tell Benazir Bhutto: make up with Nawaz Sharif and Altaf Hussain because the army is once again having second thoughts about the viability of parliamentary democracy.
There are some urgent questions the prime minister needs to resolve in the next few weeks. Why is there such a big gulf between Ms Bhutto’s views and the perception of the people of Pakistan about the reality in Karachi? How can this gulf be bridged quickly? Why has General Abdul Waheed detached the army from inputting into the problem of Karachi? Why has Mian Manzoor Wattoo been so keen to push the Chaudhry Habibullah case which has inevitably led to the framing of a charge of treason against the leader of the opposition? If Ms Bhutto can find the answers and act decisively, she will thwart the march of events from provoking a conspiracy to remove her from power. If she cannot, either because she is arrogant or stubborn, parliamentary democracy and all its players will be swept away.